EDITIONS

Follow us

During her congressional bid, Marianne Williamson decried what she called America’s “permanent war machine,” the mass incarceration of people of color, and economic inequality. | Photo by Amy Harris/Invision/AP

Oprah pal and spirituality guru plans 2020 run

Add one more name to the growing list of Democrats preparing to run for president in 2020: Marianne Williamson — pal of Oprah, spirituality guru and fixture of Hollywood's New Age community.

Williamson, a best-selling author of a dozen books on spirituality including “A Return to Love,” announced on Friday that she's forming a presidential exploratory committee and traveling to Iowa, her fifth trip to the state this year.

Story Continued Below

“We had a miracle in this country in 1776 and we need another one,” the Williamson said in a video announcement. “It’s going to be a co-creative effort, an effort of love and a gift of love, to our country and hopefully to our world.” She added that America needs to get “back to an ethical center that is the true exceptionalism of the American ideal.”

While the 66-year-old Williamson is not a familiar name inside the Beltway, it is not her first time dabbling in national politics. In 2014, she raised $2 million in bid to succeed retiring Democratic Rep. Henry Waxman in California, running as an independent. She earned endorsements from high-profile Democrats like former Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm and former Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich. Williamson came in fourth out of sixteen candidates with 13 percent of the vote with Rep. Ted Lieu eventually prevailing.

“She has not talked to me. I don’t know anything about it,” Granholm said in a text message when asked about Williamson’s presidential ambitions.

By signing up you agree to receive email newsletters or alerts from POLITICO. You can unsubscribe at any time.

A cryptic job listing had been circling around in political circles this week for a social media director to join a presidential bid that was “part campaign, part startup, part spiritual movement” on behalf of a “woman, non-politician, high-profile writer and spiritual personality.”

Multiple sources said they understood the posting to be for Williamson but spokespeople for the potential presidential candidate did not return requests for comment.

In 2014, Williamson also had support from celebrities like Eva Longoria, Nicole Richie and Jane Lynch. Alanis Morrissette even composed a campaign jingle for the effort. "We're going down, down, down. We're going down unless we move to new ground, unless we start a revolution, awaken from this frozen, start the mending of our union today," went the song.

During her congressional bid, Williamson decried what she called America’s “permanent war machine,” the mass incarceration of people of color, and economic inequality. After she lost, Williamson told Oprah in an interview that she learned a lot from the experience.

“I kept waiting for people to tell me what to do and [I] tried to hire people who would tell me what to do,” she said. “It taught me what I should have already known: to only listen to myself.”